The not so GOLD!
A bus journey from Plymouth to Paignton
It has been FAR too long since I worked on my writings about travelling the country by bus, so I decided tonight I would start again and hope it gets me on a roll… This is from my Land’s End to John O’ Groats journey at the end of Day 1.
It was my first time in Plymouth, and I can’t say I was overwhelmed by the place. I’m sure it has a lot going for it, but all I could really see as we pulled into town with little light left in the sky was a Toys R’ Us (this is, of course, long after they went out of business), the Theatre Royal (which I recognised from headlines of Theatre newsletters I read), and some large buildings with a strong civic vibe opposite where the bus was pulling up on the Royal Parade (looking them on Google maps, they do indeed appear to be the Guildhall and some courts and council offices).
I got off the 12 knowing I had 25 minutes before I needed to catch the next bus, and was hoping that this area, which seemed to be the sort of town centre, would be able to provide me with some dinner. Sure, the Cornish pasty I had had for lunch was probably enough food to last for at least a week, but I felt like I would regret it if I didn’t have, at the very least, a bit of a snack.
I wandered up and down the Royal Parade, and a bit into the sort of rectangular square that ran perpendicular to it, but pickings were slim. Like every other place in Britain, Monday night did not appear to be a happening time in Plymouth. Of the few things that were open, most of them seemed to be dessert bars, and as I didn’t fancy gelato for dinner, I eventually just opted for a Tesco meal deal. At least they had brought back Ploughman’s! I wandered back to the bus stop I needed and scarfed it down whilst waiting for the GOLD (it didn’t have a number), grateful that there were enough people lingering at the bus stop to signal the semi-imminent arrival of a bus, as the GOLD I wanted to catch was the last one of the day that ran the full route. I paced back and forth around the bus stop for a while, and then saw the GOLD round the corner and pull up to us, paid my £2, and ascended to the top deck.
The GOLD ran from Plymouth to Paignton, and I was riding all the way to the end. This was a fact that caused me some annoyance, as I actually didn’t need to go all the way to Paignton – I was actually planning on connecting in Totnes the following morning, which was a stop about 15 minutes before Paignton, but when I looked at prices for places to stay in Totnes, they were about £30 more per night, which I really couldn’t justify, so I was continuing on to Paignton, and planning on taking the first GOLD back in the morning. It didn’t really lose me any time in the long run, but I hadn’t really slept in a couple of days and was really regretting my earlier self for picking savings over convince.
I’m sure the parts of Devon we were flying through were pretty, but I saw little of them as, by the time we left Plymouth, there was nothing but darkness outside. The bus only took slightly over an hour – through a place called Sherford which looked like an American new-build estate, through Ivybridge, through Totnes (I pressed my face against the windows, wondering why this little place could be so pricy, but was left without answers), and then pulled into a bus bay in Paignton.
As I gathered my things, I looked out the window and in the glaring light of the bus station, I could see several people gathered around, facing each other in positions I could only describe as confrontational. I guided myself down the bus stairs and stepped out, and was hit by the smell of the sea and the sound of people aggressively yelling at one another. I shot them a glance, but being only one of a few people to get off the bus, I did not want to attract any unwanted attention, so wandered away from the station as quickly as I could, trying to navigate the darkness and google map my guest house at the same time.
I had two optional routes between me and sleep – one was heading out of the station to the A road, and the other was following the road (if you could call it a road) that lead into the bus station. Though I would normally think there was a safety advantage of going to the bigger road, judging by the people I had seen in Paignton so far, I thought better of wanting to be in an area with people in it, so opted for the station road – which was fine for the 400 or so metres I could see from the bus, but then became extremely narrow and extremely unlit, and I had to spend the last 200m or so walking quickly with my phone torch upheld, being led forward by only the reflection of a level crossing bar (and I have ALWAYS been creeped out by level crossing bars – I cannot explain why). I nearly ran through this bit of road, crossed at the the level crossing, and then walked towards, what I could feel was the sea, down empty streets that eventually took me to my accommodation. Oh British seaside towns!
It’s interesting, to me, that while most of the country (and the press) seems to decry London as being a den of murders, rapists, and terrorists, I’ve almost never felt unsafe in London. There are people everywhere all the time. There are open shops. I know where I’m going. It’s my city. I feel safe. But take me to a tiny town anywhere in rural Britain in the dark (or even, sometimes, in the day), and I’m scared out of my mind. Maybe it says something about who I am as a person, but people make me feel safe. And Paignton, Devon, on a misty, dark Monday night, made me feel anything but safe!
Little side note – for some reason whenever I added Alt text to these images it would just replace the images with the alt text. I’m going to come back to this tomorrow and see if it works and also complain to substack. Sorry for the lack of visual accessibility!